Nayika tells a very personal story told by a single dancing performer in a simple but beautiful staging - moving back and forth in time between the narrator's present-day self in contemporary Sydney, and her reflections on her 13-year-old self growing up alone in Chennai, India, learning Bharatanatyam dance and experiencing her first relationship. Co-directors and co-writers Nithya Nagarajan and Liv Satchell create a strong vehicle for performer Vaishnavi Suryaprakash who is endearing, and hilarious and presents the traditional dance with power and control, drawing us further into her tale The flashback structure ensures this is a story of survival, not just of trauma, and allows Suryaprakash to transation effortlessly from adult to early teenhood and back again with nothing more than a slight lighting adjustment.
It's a beatiful physical production too, from the design by Keerthi Subramanyam (the essentials of the floor and the backdrop are shared with another production in the theatre, Mandela Mathia's Sudanese immigrant tale "Lose to Win", but the circles of shaded lamps in the roof are specific to this one), to the spot-on lighting by Morgan Moroney. The two musicians visible through the back wall, Bhairavi Raman on strings and Marco Cher-Gibard doing live sampling and keyboard work, give a propulsive soundtrack to the action.
This is a powerful production combining beauty and grace with depth and emotion in the most complementary of ways. This is the kind of thing that is built for easy touring to the international festival circuit (with a small cast and simple setting), and hopefully will be a signature piece for many years to come.
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